I don’t think this site will return to normal until the US midterms are over, but I’ll try to be less of a dick until then.

Happy to contribute!

lmao I’m sorry. I tend to respond with the energy I’ve been given and this week Lemmy has been giving me lots of rude BS.

He’s referring to Ars Technica you box of rocks.

Not in November, she didn’t

Are you twelve years old?

The nominee is picked in a primary. Hillary won. Quit acting like your democracy is forced on you. It’s not.

I’m down for that, too. But please also vote strategically.

Right well let me know when you’re preparing the revolt and I’ll zero my optic and meet you in DC. Until then, please vote strategically.

You’re delusional.

We don’t live In a fucking democracy!!

Sure, bud.

Yes. It is the fault of the electorate. The rich cunts are owed plenty of blame for buying up our media ecosystem and using it to propagandize the public, but ultimately, the public has the education system because they voted for it, and the public elected their leaders because they are assholes.

I sense your US-centrism. You don’t want to be blamed, do you? Well how about Israel? Are Israelis not responsible for Bibi having power since 1996? Are Israelis great, blameless people as they vociferously support a genocide?

Think, dude.

I don’t think voting for democrats and expecting real change is a good tactic.

That would be a bad tactic, which is why I’m not espousing it.

The tactic is thus:

1. Primary status quo Democrats anywhere and everywhere we can with better candidates.

2. Whether or not that succeeds, vote for the person running on the Democratic ticket. (Hopefully it’s a progressive.)

If we don’t do #2, we’ll get fascists. If we don’t do #1, we’ll get status quo assholes, but at least they are preferable to fascists.

No one has suggested a better alternative to me. I’d love to hear it, because #2 isn’t fun most of the time. It doesn’t give me or anyone else the warm fuzzies, but it’s important.

That person who lied thousands of times before, and had a clear track record? The people that elected him should and could have known better.

It’s difficult to say.

I really don’t think it is. Can you really look around at our current reality: an executive branch shamelessly enriching themselves, a Congress that has ceded all power, a SCOTUS that has enshrined corruption and abuse of power, military and paramilitary in the streets, etc., and think, “well who knows if Harris would have been worse?” Come on, dude. Don’t let your urge to win interwebs arguments override your intellectual honesty. This shit is objectively worse than the alternative, and we don’t have to speculate about it.

I’m reminded of a quote,

“Democracy is the worst system… after all the other ones.”

We live in a democracy. What masters are you referring to? You never answered my very, very simple question. Every time I have this discussion with you guys, I’m disappointed further. You have no plan, but you want to criticize mine.

The democrats aren’t much better either though.

Your definition of “much better” seems lacking.

Supporting imperialist wars, being pro Zionism, receiving the majority of their funding from extremely rich people.

The GOP not only supports all of those, they are the origin.

I haven’t seen them implement some extremely obvious and beneficial policies like a proper universal income, decent minimum wages, free healthcare, etc.

But you have seen them implement things like negotiating drug costs, building infrastructure to poor people, providing disability benefits to people affected by toxic chemicals. Is this nothing to you? Is this literally nothing? Is this not preferable to the alternative?

Does a simple preference exist? Y/N?

On one hand, I totally, wholeheartedly agree.

On the other, it is the duty of the people to maintain their democracy, irrespective of the attempts of the wealthy to subvert it.

Show me the better alternative to voting strategically. I never claimed the US system is great and perfect and directly produces wonderful results. Nobody over age 12 believes that bullshit, especially not lately.

In our deeply, deeply flawed system, consistently voting strategically is one of the most effective things we can do to effect change for good. Not perfect, but good. I urge all my fellow citizens to master the art of holding their noses and voting for the candidate more likely to improve their lives, or less likely to fuck them over. The alternative is accelerationism towards collapse, and the people on the left who say they want that are all woefully unprepared for the consequences. (The accelerationists on the right are also unprepared, but at least they have a lot of guns.)

As for doing more: I agree. AFTER we charitably elect the lesser evil, we should be calling their offices every day. We should be demonstrating. We should be engaging in civil disobedience. Our jobs do not end on election day, but we should never, ever allow the GOP to seize power electorally when it’s so easy to keep them out. That is tying both hands behind our backs and making sure the people in power not only disregard us, but despise us.

That’s the thing: we did vote for this. Look who won the last election.